Juan P. Villasmil
The time following the Cold War was what foreign policy wonks now, somewhat dolefully, refer to as the "unipolar moment." The term, coined by columnist Charles Krauthammer, described an era in which the world was clearly led by a sole superpower: the United States of America.
With power came responsibility, as Spider-Man once said, but accompanying it was the particular challenge of overconfidence. Notably, influential thinkers like Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol successfully advocated for primacism (what's usually called neocon foreign policy). Their logic was that the U.S. had to proactively assert its dominance, even if it meant intervention "when we cannot prove that a narrowly construed 'vital interest' of the United States is at stake."
Fast forward to 2024 and we are all very familiar with the problems of being "the world's police." A man even ran for president railing against the primacists in 2016—and won. Still, although most academics recognize the end of an era, a remnant of primacism remains. Maybe more than a remnant, actually.
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